


Continuity errors

by Whit Merule (whit_merule)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, Episode Tag, Episode: s11e21 All In The Family, Fourth Wall, Gen, Meta, ranting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6830686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whit_merule/pseuds/Whit%20Merule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This episode (11x21) was all too much for Gabriel. He just had to pop out of hiding to yell at somebody.</p><p>Mostly ranting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Continuity errors

When Sam and Dean got back to the bunker, after dropping off the teenage mutant ninja sculptor, God and Gabriel were bickering in the kitchen.

Well, mostly Gabriel was.

“… and then you _turned me into a dog_ ,” he declaimed, waving Dean’s favourite coffee pot with an injured flourish that was frankly unnecessarily melodramatic.

God massaged his temples. “I’d really like some coffee,” he muttered. “Coffee that _isn’t sparkly pink_ , Gabriel.”

“And which other character this season has been literally _chained in a doghouse_?” Gabriel demanded. “Oh wait, I know! So I’m your _Crowley_ , am I? Resident extravagant morally ambiguous funny-guy that you just keep around for whatever role serves the plot best this week?”

“Yeah, about that,” grumbled God, “how _did_ you get out of my bar and stop being a dog.”

Gabriel waved a hand. It was the one holding the spatula. Egg splattered against the wall. “Continuity error. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”

“Um,” said Sam. “Hi? So. You’re back too.”

“Nobody even tries to sound surprised,” opined Gabriel. “I was dead, you know. I was pining for the fjords. Nailed to my perch.”

“Very talkative bird, the Enochian blue,” muttered God.

“Oh, please,” huffed Gabriel. “Cleese liked all my ideas better.”

“You _cheated_ ,” protested God. “And you muscled in there with Fry and Laurie and Atkinson too. You’re not as funny as you think you are, you know.”

“Says the guy who tries to turn his own autobio into a _suicide note_. For, oh, you know, the entire _world_.”

“I told you, it would _save_ Creation!”

“Uh-huh.” Gabriel crossed his arms, and quirked his eyebrows, curling his mouth into a hard smile. “Nope. Try again, popsicle.”

“ _Don’t_ —don’t call me that.”

“Daddyo?”

“I can unmake you.”

“No you can’t.”

“You were a dog?” asked Sam, trying to stick to important points.

“I got better.”

“ _Why_ were you a dog?”

“Because this hot Pater-to here doesn’t like criticism. Anyway, all the best people have been dogs. Isn’t that right, Deano?”

“You _weren’t helping_ , Gabriel.”

“You invited me to be your editor!”

“Drawing cheerful obscene cartoons in the margins is not editing.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said first time around,” grumbled Gabriel. “Then you had a hissy fit and went and grabbed that cardigan-wearing doucheface to do my job. Look where _that_ got us. Fucked up a perfectly good rank-and-file angel, is what you did. Look at him, he got delusions of grandeur. Should have bitten him when he tossed me that ham. Why’s he wearing some middle-aged white guy when he’s been hanging out with the Tribe of the Two Rivers for centuries before the Europenises got anywhere near Americas?”

“Okay,” said Dean, and rescued his coffee pot from where it was dangling sheepishly in midair, having been forgotten by both the archangel and by gravity. “So. Why’s this shit happening in our kitchen?”

“Because,” said Gabriel cheerfully, “my father is _such a him-damn coward_ that he pissed even me off enough to squirm my way out of his little fantasy world and come and yell at him.”

“Oh good,” said Dean. “I knew there were a couple of things I liked about you somewhere deep… deep inside that fuzzy annoying exterior.”

Gabriel beamed at him. “Awww, butterpumpkin. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“You killed him a few hundred times,” Sam felt compelled to point out.

“But he doesn’t remember it,” said Gabriel in reasonable tones. “Anyway, you can’t bring up things that happened seasons ago. Where would we be if everyone remembered everything? Shit, you’d have to suddenly remember that one time Dean could talk to dogs and realised that all animals in the universe are actually sentient with a fully-developed sense of self and memory and linguistic capacity and then? You’d have to interview every louse at every crime scene and take full moral responsibility for every possum you ran over on the road in the line of duty. Oh, wait, no you wouldn’t, because you don’t bother to do that with humans anyway, my bad. Carry on.”

“… What?” said Dean.

“Continuity error,” said God, and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“Okay,” said Dean carefully. “So, where’s Lucifer? And _Cas_?”

Gabriel’s face took on an expression of unironically unholy glee. “Oh, _Lucifer’s_ sulking in the basement,” he said. “Possibly in the sex torture dungeon. You remember, so dubbed by that prophet whose ghost you could totally have stopped by to visit anytime in the past few years? Anyway, for once I got to make _him_ run away from the family squabbles. Good times. And Castiel’s in your bedroom. I locked him up there. Thought you two were about due for a closet episode. You’re welcome, bee-tee-dubs.”

“……?” said Dean.

“Wait. Lucifer’s not in Castiel anymore?” said Sam.

“Oh, I pulled him out,” said Gabriel, waving a hand airily.

God scowled at him. “You did, huh?”

“Okay, Dad did. But it was my idea.”

“Yeah. You’re the soul of generosity. You just thought Castiel would take your side in the argument.”

“He did!”

“For two minutes before he got fed up with us all.”

Gabriel wrinkled his nose. “The kid grew a pair. And also got a hell of a lot less patient with bullshit.”

“So what’s Lucifer wearing now?” asked Sam.

“Oh, a construct I made for him,” said Gabriel. “Like this spiffy little tailored thing. Because I can do that. I mentioned that, right?”

“Right,” said Dean, through gritted teeth. “I’ll just… go. To my room. To look in on the only one of you dickfaces that’s worth my time. If I know him he’ll be wanting coffee.”

“Oh, hey,” Gabriel called after him, “have fun being the Righteous Man! You know—the rest of the Righteous Man shit that Dad here didn’t bother telling us about, beyond the whole Michael sword and Hell rescue thing? The bit about your whole life being the counterpoise between the light and dark? Congrats on maintaining that whole balance of the universe thing. It’s been going so well. Nothing out of whack at all these last few years.”

Dean flipped him off over his shoulder.

Sam took a deep, angry breath, and turned to God and Gabriel.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Gabriel, but I think it’s about time—”

Gabriel and God were sitting at the kitchen table now. Both had their feet up on it—God’s legs bare to his boxers, Gabriel’s clad in purple and orange flares above shoddy grey sandshoes—and Gabriel was munching on buttery caramel popcorn which had definitely not been there a minute ago. He grinned a wide messy grin around it at Sam.

“And that’s the other thing,” he went on, as if Sam hadn’t said anything, “I’m hurt, Sambulator. We’ve known each other how long and you never asked _me_ what’s up with ears? Or even Castiel? You’ve known divinely ancient beings for the last six years of your life and never bothered to sit down for a coffee and a chat about the nature of causality and the ear-nose-throat system? Which is a fuck-up in humans, by the way, Dad, congrats on making the species with the most elaborate method of oral communication unique in their ability to get their food stuck in their airway when they chatter at the table. Look at me, I'm a hairless ape and I'm choking to death. Cough. Cough.”

“Can you turn him back into a dog?” Sam pleaded. “We’re just not going to get anywhere if this keeps up. There’s meta and then there’s just _unhelpful_.”


End file.
